Do not embrace me, for I am horrified
by Starships-are-meant-to-die
Summary: The crew receives a gift from a planet they've visited. This gift is footage. This is a slight crack fic, folks, based on some of the footage from the ever famous don't hug me I'm scared video. Implied Space husbands inside.


Today was a day where the bridge had been fairly occupied. The crew's work flow had been productive. The Captain was sitting in his chair, his First Officer standing beside him as they made light conversation.

"Captain, we have an incoming transmission." Uhura informs the Captain from her post. Kirk nods and gives the order to open the transmission to speak. They are immediately faced by a slightly humanoid life form, speaking in an incoherent drawl.

"They say that their name is Loque, and they are from the planet Andel. He says that his race wishes that we dock on the planet so that they may share their culture with a vessel of Star Fleet." Uhura clarifies, knowing the language from her xenolinguistics course.

"Lieutenant Uhura, to the front please, we will need you to communicate with them to say we will dock briefly." Uhura nods, leaving her chair as she steps to the front and begins to speak in the Andel vernacular. She communicates the message, and offers them a question on whether or not they could speak the language of human.

Loque nods and begins to speak.

"We shall eagerly await your arrival."

...

The meeting on the planet went relatively well, the crew engaged the inhabitants of the planet in decent conversations. This left the citizens of Andel with hopes and intentions of future interactions with Starfleet, and causing them to graciously offer a bit of their culture in a single holo-disk to Uhura. Seeing as though she'd been the first to speak in their language to convey their request to the rest of the crew.

With their final interactions, the Enterprise left the planet.

"Mr. Chekov, I'd like you to make a ship wide announcement." Kirk orders from the chair.

"I can do zat, Keptin Kirk." The Russian ensign replies, opening the coms. "May I have your attention please, I have an announcement from the Keptin."

The Captain leaves the chair and speaks into the coms with a faint look of amusement on his features. "I request that whoever is interested come to the recreation wing after their shifts to view our gift from the citizens of Andel. Kirk out." Spock raised an eyebrow at the Captain's motive in making an entire ship wide announcement for such a small matter. But, he did not question it, at least not at this moment.

Meanwhile in sickbay, the CMO gave an exasperated sigh with the words "Damnit Jim" on his lips.

…..

As expected, only certain members of the crew showed up that night. Those members being Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, Spock, McCoy, a few ensigns and the Captain himself. Jim stood before these key members, a look of satisfaction on his face.  
"So I see you were all interested in what the planet had to offer. This should be, fun." He then put the holo-disk in its respective spot so that they could see what this was.

"Uhura, I have a quick question. What was the title on the disk?" Jim asks as he takes a seat next to Spock.

"I believe it said something like "Don't hug me I'm scared. "There is a collective number of "Shhhs" from certain members of the crew as the footage starts.

An optimistic tune begins to play as a notebook opens, and everyone is quiet. As the music starts, a few members of the crew nod along with the song, those crew members being Chekov and Scotty. They receive a few stares, Chekov having more attention drawn as he is humming along.

"Vhat? It is wery catchy." He says with a shrug. The music continues as the notebook sings in a rhyme. The room is filled with quiet murmurs among the ones attending.

"I do not understand why this sentient notebook has decided to convey that thinking 'creatively' is how one forms an idea— it is highly illogical. " The first officer says quietly.

"Spock, come on. Its footage, just keep watching and see where it goes." Kirk says in a whisper, waving his hand in a motion that cuts off anything the commander can object with.

More of the crew members begin to nod along with the cheerful music. They all exchange confused stares as the puppets drawing of a clown is covered with black ink, with the notebook telling him to slow down.

"Aw, he looks like he worked really hard on that..." Sulu mutters. Both Uhura and McCoy grimaced at the action done against the clown painting.

None the less, the footage continues.

"How the hell is using sticks to make words creative?" Leonard whispers, growing bored and irritable from the confusing display. The whole thing seemed childish.

"Hell if I know." Kirk shrugs.

"Might I say that it I strongly disagree with how the sentient notebook reprimands the puppet for using a color that had not been supplied onto the wheel. Exactly who is she to define the merits of the word creative?" The Vulcan whispers across the room, and of course, no one but Jim is really paying attention. He received a pat on the back.

"It's bad, I know. Keep watching, it might get better."

All murmurs in the room stop when the sight of the letters on the screen flashing in an apparent 21st century 3D manner catches their eye.

They see that the characters have changed, and it's wordlessly decided that they should stop talking to see what is happening. As an organ appears on the screen being decorated in a crude manner, there are a few gasps within the room.

A few ensigns get up and leave, beginning to grow horrified as the gore continued, despite the fact they've dealt with worse on missions. Chekov lasts a few more seconds, up until the gruesome cake before running out doing everything but screaming in horror, whereas Sulu is following his friend to make sure he's okay. Spock sat, visibly unphased by what he'd just witnessed. Leonard, Uhura, Jim, and Scotty sat in silence as the final words could be heard.

"Now let's all agree, to never be creative again." The notebook chimes before closing.

"Ach, I'm going to need a drink—" Scotty breaks in, moving to get up. Uhura then punches a laughing Jim in the arm.

"I can't believe you find this funny!" She gets up to go to her quarters, utterly done for the night. Leonard sighs and leans back.

"Spock, I'm never looking at your blood samples the same again." He looks over to Scotty,  
"Can I join you for that drink?" The engineer nods, going off with the CMO following him.

"Now let's all agree to never talk about this again—"Leonard mutters before rounding a corner with Scotty.

Spock finally opens his mouth to speak.

"I believe there was a logical theme to this, despite its crude interpretation. " Jim looks over to his friend, still laughing.

"Enlighten me."

"Very well. The message in this was apparently that although some cultures embrace creativity, it is conveyed in the wrong manner because it is not right for them to act in their own right of creativity because it was not in the given parameters. The notebook was clearly expressing her ideas of creativity but not leaving whom she was teaching any room for an opinion, she was conditioning them in her own ideas but failing to get a point across, and therefore when they engaged in a volatile manner of 'creativity' because of her interpretations, she blamed them and asked that they never be creative again. Although it was her fault in the first place." Jim began to clap slowly, confusing the Vulcan.

"Captain, why are you applauding my explanation?"

"It was pretty creative, Spock." He says with a large grin. The Vulcan stares at him incredulously.

"I request you do not reference this again, Captain…"

"Hmm, if I start to make you blush like last time we met for a game of chess in my quarters, no promises." James stood to his feet and smirked as he began to walk away.

"Does this mean you look forward to another encounter?" The Vulcan clears his throat, standing up straight.

"Maybe, just maybe. Night Spock." He singsongs before leaving, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Spock could've sworn he heard the Captain humming the lyrics to the crude footage before he disappeared from his line of sight.


End file.
